Farmhouse Fare in Skipton won its third successive supreme championship at the annual Great Northern Pork Pie Competition, which ran alongside the 2012 Christmas primestock shows at Skipton Auction Mart.

Janet Green with her supreme champion pie

The business has a bakery in Skipton and a retail shop in the town’s High Street and pulled of a remarkable championship hat-trick with its first prize stand pie, also chosen as the best pie from Yorkshire. Farmhouse Fayre’s first prize speciality pork and apple pie was awarded the reserve championship.

Janet Green, who runs the Skipton shop, was up and about at 5am on the morning of the competition to make and cook the pies to ensure they arrived in peak condition.

She said: “We have been using the same recipe for our pork pies since day one when we first established the business in 1975. To win the supreme championship for the third consecutive year is a major coup for us and true testimony to the quality of our pies.”

The fourth annual Roses ‘battle of the butchers’ again saw pie-makers from both sides of the border go head to head in a competition to find who produces the best pork pies.

In fact, all the prizes in the three competition classes fell to entries from Yorkshire butchers, with Bolster Moor Farm Shop at Golcar, Huddersfield, presenting the first prize traditional pork pie, the second and third prize stand pies, and the second prize speciality pork pie.

The shop virtually swept the board in this year’s annual Great Yorkshire Pork Pie, Sausage & Products Competition, held in Bradford last month (Nov), when landing a pork pie and sausage supreme championship double.

Bolster Moor Farm Shop is owned and run by second cousins Simon Haigh and Andrew Whitwam, who formed their partnership in 1996, started manufacturing pies three years later and in 2009 launched their own shop on the family farm.

Bentleys Butchers, of Pudsey, run by Steve Martin, finished third in the traditional pork pie class, also winning first prize in a new competition class for Scotch eggs, which are made for the Robin Lane shop by Mr Martin’s partner Lynn Robinson.

Lunds Butchers, of Oakworth Road, Keighley, was third in the speciality pie class, while Lancashire meat men did not leave entirely empty-handed when John Whiteside Butchers in Colne won a special prize for the best Lancashire pie.

Entries were judged by a panel of pork pie experts and aficionados, led by Keighley butcher Mike Ward, former president of the National Federation of Meat and Food Traders, and secretary of the Great Yorkshire Pork Pie, Sausage & Products Competition. Scotch eggs were judged by former butcher Matthew Schofield, of Gargrave.

This year’s competition had a new sponsor in Keighley-based spice merchants TW Laycock, represented by director David Hempel, with the supreme champion’s trophy again presented by Robin Moule, of Skipton-based PR company Moule Media.

Another new competition class for Christmas fruit cakes was well supported, with the title falling to farmer’s wife Helen Herd, of Saxelby Farm, Hebden, who is no stranger to success in the cake competition arena, having also presented the best in show at Lothersdale YFC’s annual show this year.

She said her cakes were made to a secret recipe handed down over many generations. The runner-up was Eileen Addyman, of Skipton, with cakes judged by Julie Clarke, of Coverdale, chair of the North Yorkshire West Federation of Women’s Institutes, and Shirley Mason, of Embsay.

David and James Asquith with their
champion bale of fodder hay.

A fodder hay competition was won by the first prize bale of old meadow hay from James and David Asquith, of Riverside Farm, Otley, who farm 300 acres and grow haylage mainly for the horse market, also running a second business Chevin Landscapes.

Runners-up were the Briggs brothers – David, Hughie and Jack - from Clayton-le-Dale with their first prize bale of seed hay. The fodder competition was sponsored by Windle Beech Winthrop, of Skipton, and judged by Clive Hanson, of Bracewell.

There was again a major charity element to the day, with pork pies, fruit cakes, Scotch eggs and fodder – all donated by willing participants, plus generous donations by many others - auctioned off in the main ring to a host of enthusiastic bidders.

In the region of £2,000 was raised and the main beneficiaries are Sue Ryder Manorlands Hospice in Oxenhope, and Brooklands Community Special School in Skipton.